Hello everyone! So, finally we received all answers from our participants from MARSocial author network. Are you excited to read the answers yet? Question #10 is “When you hit a wall, how do you break through?” by LaRae Parry.
Let’s check out the answers from all 11 author participants !
2) Viv Drewa
Save what I’ve written and, if the weather’s nice, take a walk. Or read. I do have a friend I use as a sounding board sometimes.
Sorry, LaRae I’m the wrong person to answer. I can honestly say I never get writer’s block. I swim every day and usually I am writing the next chapter in my mind as I swim. Great physical and mental exercise.
4) Sam Reese
5) Neil McGowan
I tend to leave what has blocked me and go on to something else. I’m also a keen cyclist so I’ll go for a ride; I almost always come up with ways to beat the block this way.
7) Jaro Berce
I try to prevent it so I normally don’t hit a wall – I predict, envision and look forward. But if eventually it happens, I sit and rethink all over again.
Ah, the age old writer’s block. I haven’t had official writer’s block in years, but I will tell you now that I often feel like I’m “almost” having it and that, my friends, is just as terrifying. Sometimes it will have been weeks since I wrote anything just because my life has gotten too hectic.
Eventually, I have to step away from these distractions and get back to the reason I went on this journey in the first place. Writing. Sometimes just journaling or freewriting gets some of that clutter out of your head. I have a few writing reference books if I ever need help with freewriting or doing a random scene. I would recommend Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones. I have returned to it time and time again. It is a great book to help cut through some of those blocks. It may not result in a scene, but sometimes writing just to write, even if it’s crap, is just as therapeutic. Hell, maybe you’ll surprise yourself with another medium – essays or poetry. Another good book is Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird.
There are, of course, other resources. Sometimes I even do a search on “writing prompts” online and print out a few pages. I pick an exercise and go with it. But, mainly, my “walls” have more to do with a current work in progress. Occasionally, I will hit a place in my manuscript in which I don’t know what road to take. Sometimes the best thing to do is to walk away. That might sound bad, but even a little distance from a project for a few days can make you look at it from a different perspective. Maybe when you come back, something will jump out at you and you’ll wonder why you never saw it before.
Feel like tearing yourself away is the worst thing you could possibly do? Fine. Do some research for the book. Find some much needed information that you can throw in at any time. Sometimes I find that filling in these blanks is just the boost I need to finish a scene. In lieu of all that, I often will move on to a different project temporarily. I will look through my numerous files and do some editing or write a little on those works in progress. Any little bit helps, right? Sometimes stepping away from the current work in question is just what it takes to get back on track. Who knows? Maybe reading a book, seeing a movie or having a conversation with a good friend will spark an idea.
9) LaRae Parry
11) Annie Edmonds
The next question is “What is your writing process like? Is it spontaneous or do you do a lot of planning in advance before you begin writing?” by Marie Lavender. Stay tuned with us for the next post !
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